The hit at the end of ‘The Last of Us’ continues to bring a tail and (spoilers of course) one of the things that go around in our heads is that “Vale” (Fade to black) with which the ninth and last episode of season 1 from the HBO Max series.
One last sentence, coming from the mouth of Ellie (Bella Ramsey)in response to all the milonga that Joël (Pedro Pascal) he had told her about what really happened at the hospital. However, that last shot of Ramsey was not the only closure that they considered Craig Mazin and Neil Druckman... but we almost see an alternate ending.
A less ambiguous ending
One that, in fact, we didn’t see for very little. In this alternative ending, the scene was lengthened a bit, with Ellie resuming the march and Joel following her. Something that was idea of Ali Abbasithe director of the ending, and which Mazin defines in this way:
“The change was really something that Ali Abbasi, our director, wanted to play with. He had this idea to play with this slightly longer sad version where Ellie says “ok” and turns and walks away. And Joel goes after her. We see the two of them walking, not really together but apart, walking down towards Jackson. He lingers and then fades away. There was something precious about it. Everyone was like “what do we do?” and there was this meta-debate about whether people who played the game are going to be more upset that they didn’t get it the way it’s supposed to be or are they going to be more upset that they took what they already had? And if that, how will the rest feel? In the end, there’s something very specific about ending that close-up of Ellie. It is not known what happens next. She walks away from him, walks with him, how does she feel? That moment remains in the air permanently. (…) I think people will be pissed off!”
finally this scene it fell in the editing room of the final version when it felt “soft”. In fact, it did slip into some provisional version before being discarded and that caused a certain disagreement between HBO and the creators of the series.
“It’s a different roll”
The chain liked that the ending was less ambivalent and already anticipated how the relationship of one and the other would be in season 2. Neither Mazin nor Druckmann agreed.: “When you let people calm down after the lie and let them walk towards the horizon, it’s a different thing” Druckmann told The New Yorker.
«I think we need to take responsibility for it and tell HBO “this is the bold way to end it”», completes Mazin, who affirmed that after thinking about it, it always returned to the beauty of the end that we have seen. Even though the “main” interpretation is about that breach of trust, that final conversation has a fantastic ambivalence that already fascinated Mazin playing the video game:
«Seeing Pedro and Bella I feel the same as I felt seeing you [Ahsley Johnson] Ya Troy [Baker]. This is, I’m not sure if Ellie is saying “Okay, you’re lying to me and I’m just going to ignore it and move on” or “Okay, you’re lying to me and we’ve changed for the worse forever” or if she’s saying “You’re lying but you finish me off.” to say you don’t lie and it’s incredibly important to you and I love you, and I’m going to say, ‘Okay, I’m going to decide I’m not going to live the lie. Or if she is so terrified that what she has suggested has happened that she wants to believe him because the alternative terrifies her. It can be any of those things. (…) In the end she is going to say that OK because it is the right thing to do. »